In conventional systems using application servers, print orders initiated by users are typically sent to network printers. These network printers are hereby always installed on the application server. The printer may be a single installed printer or be part of a list of installed printers. A user of the application server can then select a printer suitable for the intended purpose from the list.
This solution has the disadvantage that even if a list of network printers is offered, users working on the application server are unable to print in the area accessible to the user. This may occur, for example, when the network printer is installed at the company, whereas the user happens to work on the application server from home. Although the user may be able to select the network printer and even print on that printer, the user will generally be unable with the available conventional solutions to print on the home desktop printer.
A method for printing at a local printer using the resources of a networked remote application server is described in EP 1 422 609 A2. The networked remote application server responds to a print executable request from a local client by downloading a print proxy executable that obtains printing parameters. Upon receipt of printing parameters from the print proxy executable, the networked remote application server generates a printer-dependent data stream and downloads the data stream to the print proxy executable running on the local client. The print proxy executable then uses local printer utilities to execute the print job. However, this application server system doesn't consist of a combination of application and terminal server. Therefore, addressing the client is done in a different way than in terminal server environments.
A server based printer System is described in the European patent Application EP 1 248 185 A2. Also in this case, the client server system doesn't consist of a combination of application and terminal server. Therefore, addressing the client is done in a different way than in terminal server environments.
Although a printing system and method for a terminal server environment is described in the publication US 2003/0210417 A1, this system doesn't comprise an application server. Thus, also in this system addressing the client is done in a different way than in systems using furthermore an application server, as for example for printing from UNIX and SAP servers to ICA/RDP clients.
Another printing system is described in EP 1 276 041 A2. There is proposed that an application server, a data server, and a printer are connected to one another via a communication network. The application server executes application software generated print data for printing an interim result or final result of processing performed by the application software, and sends the print data to the data server. The data server provides the supplied print data to the printer. The printer performs printing in accordance with the provided print data.